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Doug Kass, the much-quoted hedge-fund manager, has a love-hate relationship with Twitter.

Four months ago, Kass, who enjoys writing as much as he does investing, tweeted that he was quitting the micro-blogging site. But he just couldn't stay away from this electronic form of crack cocaine for too long.

"While I don't plan to post as frequently as I have in the past, I recognize (when conducted in a civil manner) that Twitter can be legitimate and value-added platform for instantaneously communicating to others," writes Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management.

Assuming that Kass' analysis of the company is on the money—and you can judge that for yourself—it remains to be seen how many investors will be lucky enough to get Twitter shares at anything close to that price. As Forbes pointed out in a piece Monday, a stock on average opens for trading at a price 49% higher than the initial public offering price.

That could take the price of Twitter to close to the price Kass is willing to pay for it, making Twitter not such a "manifestly bullish" trade after all for most investors.

Kass' piece, written in his typically conversational style, does make a compelling case for Twitter, if not the soon-to-be stock.

"With over 230 million active monthly users and more than 500 million tweets daily, the unique structure of the Twitter experience brings the company smack in the middle of both the mobile delivery of content and advertising," he writes. "Looking forward, the larger the user base becomes the greater the value proposition will be for advertisers—and the greater the worth of Twitter's shares."

Financial Times

The piece notes that investors might view the big banks as a value right now, given that JPMorgan, Citigroup and BofA trade at nine to 11 times forward earnings, versus 15 times for the Standard & Poor's 500, for a median of 63% of the index. "Since 1999, these banks have traded at a median of 75 per cent of the index, says S&P Capital IQ," FT writes.

But the piece makes the point that the regulatory and economic headwinds that help to explain why the stocks look inexpensive by historical measures may blow harder in the future.

"Enforcement action seems to be intensifying rather than the opposite, and the economy has lost some steam," the FT writes. "If JPMorgan's mortgage settlement is any indication, other banks could be hit with more cash settlement costs and demands for loan forgiveness for consumers. The latter could eat into loan-loss reserves that banks have been releasing to boost earnings. And tapering by the Federal Reserve has been delayed, continuing the squeeze on margins."

After reading this brief but thoughtful piece, I personally wouldn't be piling into a financial-services exchange-traded fund right now.

A perusal of the financial Websites Thursday revealed a few interesting takes on the overall stock market.

Minyanville

The article points out that Tesla, the electric-car maker with a valuation of more than 250 times this year's expected earnings, has failed to hit a new high with the S&P 500 over the past two weeks and its relative performance against the S&P 500 is deteriorating. "It is also possibly forming a bearish technical chart pattern known as a head-and-shoulders top," the piece points out. "Overall, investors should take note of the message the leaders are sending here. Their weakness could be an early sign that traders are beginning to lose faith in the 'story.' "

But Jim Jubak, a veteran MSN Money writer and a man who's seen his share of market cycles, thinks that the stock market can "melt up" for a few months before it finally gives up its gains.

"I think the odds are good—very good indeed—that we'll see one of those big, all-animal-spirits-on-deck upward moves in U.S. stocks from now until at least mid-December," he writes. "That's assuming the markets get past this week's Oct. 30 meeting of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee without a move by the U.S. central bank to cut back on its $85 billion a month in monetary stimulus. And I think this is a relatively safe assumption."

He adds, however, that an "end-of-the-year melt up wouldn't be all good news for traders and investors. Because it could be a last hurrah."

Jubak's piece, which is built on sentiment indicators, is worth a read for anyone with a bit of the market-timing bug. Not that I encourage such thinking.